Noam Chomsky - Materialism, Limited Understanding and Innate Moral Principles

Excerpt from the lecture "The Machine, the Ghost, and the Limits of Understanding: Newton's contributions to the study of mind" in 2011.

[@breadandwater7038]

Literally Chomsky is one of the few geniuses willing to dumb his thoughts/work down for the layman… most geniuses just expect us to keep up, we should be honored.

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

im not even sure if he "dumb" it down or just simply tells it how it is. i rather think some people like to make it seem more complex by fancy words.

[@sashacurcic1719]

He's not dumbing it down. He's just incredibly good at distilling things down to their most basic parts. His books are also written like this, with clear, legible points and conclusions.

[@JamesMaxwellOBrien]

I've thought for awhile now that materialism and idealism are vague philosophies because we never really get good definitions of what matter or spirit is. When it comes down to it I think cognitivism is obsolete. Neuroscientific developments are useful but indirect realism and internalism as theories are contradictory to what we see going on. There is a correlation but there is no evidence of an internal world inside our heads identical or secreted by the brain.

[@neuropakho]

+Jamie O'Brien Wherein lies the basic difference between idealism and materialism? It lies in the opposite answers given by the two to the fundamental question in philosophy, that of the relationship between spirit and matter ( that of the relationship between consciousness and existence). Idealism considers spirit (consciousness, concepts, the subject) as the source of all that exists on earth, and matter (nature and society, the object) as secondary and subordinate, Materialism recognizes the independent existence of matter as detached from spirit and considers spirit as secondary and subordinate..

[@davidl3207]

What do you mean by "cognitivism." I mean, your comment has been produced cognitively, and I have understood it cognitively. (I agree, and indeed it is perhaps self-evident) that there is nothing "identical" inside our heads identical, that is, to neural pathways. However, just like forces (gravity, etc) we can still map out (describe) cognition's features, without knowing what cognition "is" (ie without "explaining" it). This is Chomsky's point about gravity too.

[@tonyballoney5552]

Another Chomsky video down the pipe. 🤙🏿🤙🏿🤙🏿

[@rodrigoaguilar6424]

I love this videos, however it seems that every video of Chomsky is like -100 in volume

[@RyanWattersRyanWatters]

I think it’s because Chomsky screams at -50 volume.

[@leevanderlin2701]

My hero!

[@sealclubber1383]

One of the greatest minds (whether you agree or not) and only 4100 views?

[@franciss2016]

+Seal Clubber With the internet, for the first time in history, almost all of the worlds information is available, and we use it to watch cat videos, and argue with people we dont know about things that dont matter.

[@MontyCantsin5]

The full talk has over a quarter of a million views... Still not as many as it should have, but a good start.

[@madmanga64]

To busy keeping up with the kardashians 😂

[@villiestephanov984]

Seal Clubber , we care for a single ear.

[@abdimohamed8640]

Surely a great intellectual

[@user-yk9sk7pg6v]

Thank you

[@lucasrandel8589]

I wish Chomsky (and public intellectuals in general for that matter) were more in the habit of quoting sources. Does anybody know what infant study he talks about in the beginning? I wouldn't even know where to begin searching for that.

[@user-gz4ve8mw9l]

Even so one doesn't need sources to think and connect dots. I couldn't care less for sources, the knowledge is the relevant part. Not who ostensibly devised x and who didn't or might've etc. Credit is a capitalist mindset which detracts from learning. In favor of obedience to the system, it encourages belief over thought.

[@lucasrandel8589]

@@user-gz4ve8mw9l I've seen idiologues say farfetched things but 'looking into sources is a capitalist mindset and obedience to the system' is such a stretch I'm pulling a muscle just reading it. Look buddy, I'm a psych student. I like to learn about psychology. For that I read studies.

[@gamingwithslacker]

Full lecture to be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/embMn2h7mc-bepI

[@xw213xlastname8]

Hello, does anybody know to which experiments is Chomsky referring to at 1:40 -2:10 (baby experiments). Thanks

[@dickgoblin]

He referencing 'Skinner, B. F.. Science and human behavior'.

[@BGarda]

What book is he referring to at 4:26?

[@chasemackey4038]

+Balázs Garda "Elements of Moral Cognition" by John Mikhail

[@nyb_ok]

Can this book be read by average readers?

[@6xxj773]

We can’t even understand the deterministic nature of that 800 cell organism, so why extrapolate to humans?

[@gridcaster]

because scientific inquiry will eventually lead to progress if there is a material cause?

[@buddinganarchist]

How do you spell that book name he sighted? John Mc hile?

[@binduchintada990]

John Micheal

[@user-wf4vj1is1v]

John Mikhail www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/john-mikhail/

[@Matthew8473]

Absolutely outstanding! This is top-notch content. I read something similar, and it was mind-blowing. "The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Living Guide" by Matthew Cove

[@tenzingchonden7502]

Can someone please tell me the name of the book that Chomsky mentioned?

[@naveed210]

Hi, did you find the title? I'm curious to know too

[@tiagocbraga]

audio is super low

[@zacharygulshad9212]

Welcome to Noam Chomsky videos

[@CopelandMeister]

How does he know the infants invent invisible mechanical causes? Can he speak with infants?

[@gridcaster]

the tests are designed to create a false understanding of mechanical cause...like, for example, you put a child in front of a TV and then have a tester clap. When the tester claps an unseen second person hits a remote control that turns the TV on. When the child tries to replicate the behavior you can confuse them even more by hitting the remote control when they clap. They will almost certainly become convinced that clapping has the power to turn the TV on...they've created a model for how TVs work based on their perspective. A slightly older child might even come up with an explanation for why clapping has something to do with TVs....like clapping makes a sound and that specific sound somehow is heard by the TV (like a clapper device...but there is no clapper device) the child just assumes (i.e. invents its existence) there is a material cause link between clapping and TVs turning on.

[@antoniusspek5222]

A modern day (prophet) judge.

[@djtan3313]

"...d Tao is not apprehensible..."

[@qwertyuiop-ke7fs]

The problem with the "rat in a maze where it has to know prime numbers" example, as a metaphor for humanity's relationship with the mysteries of the universe, is that the rat is being trained. So it's important to be careful when using words like "understanding". If it solved the maze perfectly after being trained, this would tell you nothing about it's "understanding" of primes, any more than Google translate can "understand" chinese.

[@abside30glu]

Noam Chomsky - Materialism, Limited Understanding and Innate Moral Principles

[@paybacks3728]

but our brains are always learning something new. if we could live forever we'd have time to solve the mysteries we're searching for answers for now. That be awesome

[@grantray98]

Pay backs If a rat lived forever do you think it would be capable of knowing everything? Perhaps our egoistic perspective is deluding us into thinking these answers are even knowable to humankind. Food for thought.

[@Joleyn-Joy]

If there is a metaphysical reality then we wouldn't. And naturalism is too imprecise to use as method as well.

[@johntirow3248]

this is the end buddy lol just joking new hope lol

[@assfukwut]

Lol owned

[@user-ui2mk2no1f]

At this point with all the evidence for Concsciousness as being fundamental and spacetime emergent, Dawkins should be having fits. 🤣 "Materialism is untenable for several reasons. One of them is the internal contradiction: it defines matter as something that is independent and alien to consciousness and has no inherent qualities, and then it tries to explain the qualities of experience in terms of something that was defined as having nothing to do with experience. And that failed to do that and then we wonder why it failed." Bernardo Kastrup.

[@buddinganarchist]

Nemotodes gave us Trump.

[@josefantom156]

After enlightening lecture from chomsky we get to listen to Analyst Warns ads full of propoganda

[@jackmclaren768]

"There was a concept of materialism" haha

[@djtan3313]

Let's just stick to engineering or advanced engineering, if u may...

[@caspar_gomez]

this is one of the most insufferable comment sections I've ever seen, made worse by the fact everybody is dead serious

[@IHopeYouDIY]

He has made everything beautiful [well arranged] in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish. Ecclesiastes 3:11; NW.

[@IHopeYouDIY]

+yabadabadu Please find below cited verses that apply and hopefully appeal, thank you. The Bible books of Job, Proverbs, and Isaiah were Inspired between nearly 3000 and more than 2000 years before Galileo and Newtown, respectively. Respectfully. MXT. Proverbs 6:6-8, Proverbs 23:23. Proverbs 30: 24-31. Isaiah 40: 22, 26. Compare Job 26:7 Psalms 83:18; Exodus 6:3. Romans 1:20 Matthew 10:8.

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

A very Chomskyian brand of "mysterism" I should say.

[@iwatochmyna9764]

Materialism is false.

[@vals4207]

Why? Can you elaborate?

[@iwatochmyna9764]

@@vals4207 What we call "matter" is just something forming regular patterns that is part of our perceptions. We know matter from consciousness, not the other way around. The entire content of our life, of our subjective experience, of our thoughts, of our emotions is in consciousness. The concept of an external world independent of the phenomenal is an explanatory model, not an empirical fact. No phenomenal quality can be interpreted as direct evidence of something that exists outside of phenomenality. Moreover, a materialistic approach doesn't solve the hard problem of consciousness (How could qualities of experience emerge from material interactions? It doesn't make sense.).

[@kageedit354]

@@iwatochmyna9764 without matter you wouldn’t have consciousness

[@iwatochmyna9764]

@@kageedit354 This assertion is highly speculative and appeals to a completely unparsimonious ontology.

[@chaitalichatterjee4742]

​@@kageedit354consiousness Just is and you need thought for differentiatiating space time